Beautiful Celestial Maps from the 1700s

“The Atlas Celeste de Flamsteed” contains early mappings of many well known constellations and stars that we are familiar with today.

John Flamsteed was an English astronomer in the late 1600s, who became the first Astronomer Royal under King Charles II. Flamsteed spent his life looking at the heavens and documenting over 3000 stars for those of us down below, according to the The Public Domain Review. He also made some of the earliest sightings of the planet Uranus and correctly predicted two solar eclipses.

I discovered this atlas of Flamsteed’s findings in the New York Public Library Digital Collections, which were published posthumously by his wife. The atlas you see here was published in 1776 by French engineer Nicolas Fortin, who updated some of the star positions.

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Elizabeth

Hello, Neptunians!

I’m Elizabeth, captain of this starship and a nerd for science-fiction and classic literature, a nostalgia-head and an explorer with a love for solitude and freedom. I write and stand behind a camera for a living. At present, I’m learning to live deliberately.